Persona 5: Fractured Mementos
by Jadegang
Summary: A re-telling of Persona 5 with a twist. If your fate is changed, what else will change? Joker becomes Phantom, your friends change- and what else? Will be split into two parts: Part 1 will be Persona 5's story with a twist as written above while part 2 will play after that story. NO shipping in this story!
1. Chapter One

**Chapter 1**

It was a nice day in Tokyo, though some might also have called it somewhat hot. Others again might have called it scorching hot. Seeing how the green was already gone from the grass after only about three days of this extreme a temperature and only brown clusters that resembled hay remained, the latter seemed like the most accurate description.

Now, one might wonder why nobody had turned on the sprinklers to pour some much needed water on the grass or the also wilting flowers everywhere. The problem here was that there simply was next to no human being around to help Mother Nature.

Ducks and swans were lazily swimming their laps around the lake without disturbance. Bees and wasps were buzzing about, although with less and less luck of finding some good nectar in this damned heat. Still, at least no annoying human was swatting at them like usual. Foxes were scampering about without fear of having to hide.

All in all animals were going about their daily business - far more open about it, though – without any interference by any human.

Empty restaurants. Plundered and half-destroyed supermarkets. Vacant and forgotten cars everywhere on the streets. Derailed trains piling up over each other. Half of Tokyo's houses destroyed. The streets so quiet it would have given someone the shivers if there had been someone around to actually get said shivers.

It was as if humanity had simply completely ceased to exist. Here and there in the corner of the streets were some half-rotten human corpses to be found, but that was it. The few remaining humans in Japan – nay, the whole world - were hiding. Where, nobody could really say, but they were definitely hiding somewhere. At least that was what the being creeping through the streets felt as it was pursuing one of said last human beings through the slowly setting sun which died the streets in a deep red. They could feel their prey's erratic breath, could sense their growing fear and despair.

_`Left, then right twice… Through an abandoned warehouse… then right again…´_, the being tracked its prey's course through ruined Tokyo in its mind, and through its latest victim's dead corpse aside like a dog that had grown tired of its toy. Blood-soaked headphones slid off the corpse's head and made a far too loud noise in the small alleyway they were currently at when they hit the floor.

The being began moving faster, its mind focusing on its next victim, smashing doors and pieces of broken walls that were obstructing its way to pieces like it was nothing, gaining more on more on the current object of its desire.

»Too soon… incomplete… denied yet again… you will all pay…«, the being mumbled to itself, ignoring the warning voice inside its head that tried to make them cease their meaningless slaughter.

_`Futile... I will not be denied…´_

Two more corners another jump and a smashed wall later it heard the satisfying scream of a woman being thrown to the side as the debris of said smashed wall hit her in the back and threw her to the ground.

»Ugh…«, the woman groaned and tried to get up slowly, too wounded to get up any faster.

»Well, well, well…«, the being snarled, grabbed the woman at her hair and threw her back to the ground. »Look what I just found myself.« Again it grabbed her hair, ignoring her protests of pain, and forced her to look it in the eye. »Good afternoon, Sae Niijima.«

Sae Niijima's eyes widened as she stared at her tormentor. »You…?«, she groaned through gritted teeth. »But why…?«

»Why, indeed.«, the being interrupted, slightly lost in thought, before starting to pull at her hair with this right hand while the left held Sae's body in place. »Well, it doesn't matter anymore."

Sae tried to speak again, but only found herself able to scream in pain as the being pulled her hair to the side more and more, her head being forced in the same direction as the rest of her body was held in place.

»But I have to admit, that was very brave of you. Hiding your darling little sister and her friend while trying to lure me away.« He kept pulling and pulling, slowly and agonizing. »Too bad that there is no hiding from me once you come out from wherever it is those last drecks are hiding. But you just had to get out, didn't you? Your food supplies are running quite low, aren't they?« It chuckled. «But now nobody will get fed tonight. At least there's three mouths less too feed.« Another chuckle as it saw the understanding dawn in her eyes, followed by despair. »Didn't I just tell you that nobody can hide once they leave that place? Oh, and after you had just promised Sakura-san that you would never let anything happen to his daughter! Such a pity! …Well…« There was an audible SNAP as Sae's neck finally broke. "Goodbye…"

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Every single joint in his body ached in the most painful way, every bone felt broken and crushed. He felt unbearably hot, as if he had been lying in boiling-hot water. His skin felt as if thousands of needles were constantly pricking him. And worst of all, he could not move a single muscle to try and do something against the pain he was currently experiencing.

"Well, well, well...", a female voice said, barely registered by his groggy mind. "It looks like you'e gone and died, Akira-kun. Congratulations~."

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Everything was bathed in white, be it the building itself, the people present, the chairs and tables, the cake or the flower the lovely bride-to-be was carrying. Bells were ringing loudly to commemorate the happy occasion. Though while it should have been a happy and memorable point for the couple that was about to be wed, there was something were strange about this whole event. For once, it was nighttime, as the moonlight pouring through the windows and illuminating the giant statues of a bald man with shades that were placed around the room was suggesting. Usually marriages happened during the day, not in the dead of the night. And speaking of dead, nothing but the full moon could be seen when looking outside the windows. It was as if nothing was there. As if the rest of the world had vanished.

Almost as strange as this was that the faces of the people currently present were completely empty. They were black spaces with red eyes, nothing else. Everyone's faces except the priest's - a balding old man with glasses - was like that- and, of course, the currently masked face of a teenage boy hiding up on one of the wooden beams above the celebrating mass.

"... -om, come in!", a female voice that sounded like it was coming from a radio and which only the young man could hear said.

But the young man was far too busy staring down at the people sitting in what was supposed to be church. But, was it really? Strangely enough, the environment seemed to shift toward what seemed like a giant courtroom and then suddenly back to the church.

"What is...?", the young man began to mumble, but was cut off by another female voice in his head.

"Phantom! Geet a grip on yourself this instant and MOVE!"

The teenager called Phantom took one last look at the shifting church, then shook his head to clear his mind, looked behind him and shoved what he had been carrying until now carefully inside an idention that had been created in one of the statues of the man.

"You take good care of that now, Shido-san. Thanks.", he mumbled, then took aim and jumped from the wooden beam he had been standing on to another one, and that as loudly as he could.

Surprised, the people gathered here looked up to the source of that sudden noise, and immediately the humming of the masses and the boringly grand speech the priest had been giving died down.

"You...! Thief...!", the priest said with an eerily distorted voice and suddenly began to turn into black goo, just like the couple behind him and the guests. The goo gathered in the centre of the room, became one giant mass and hastily transformed into a giant fist which darted upwards to grab Phantom.

"Whoa!", the so-called thief shouted, jumped to the next wooden beam and continued this way through the giant hall, the goo hot on his trail.

"Good. Now keep running!", the female voice who had reprimanded him seconds ago shouted in his head.

"This is our only chance!", a young male's voice this time said.

"Stay calm, Phantom! You can get away if you just manage reach the other side! Move the way I told you, soldier!", the female who had been trying to get his attention first was now shouting inside his head like female drill sergeant, her whole demeanor having suddenly changed from worried to demanding and angry.

"We'll retrieve the treasure on our end.", an older woman's voice this time.

"... suspects... not... confirmed... hold... positions..." The voice this time did not sound familiar to the teenage boy who had almost passed through half of the far too long hall now while the hand made of goo was smashing things left and right as it was trying to grab a hold of him.

"Silence, peasant! Don't interrupt-", the angry female started shouting again, but then stopped. "Wait... What was that...?"

"At any rate, do not worry about us. Just concentrate on getting out of there!" The female who had reprimanded him again.

"Well, I'm trying!", Phantom answered to that and managed to jump to the next beam just in time as the hand behind him smashed the one he had been standing on this pieces. The hall's whole structure started shaking alarmingy, now that so many of its supports had been destroyed.

"But I have to admit, showing yourself above that crowed just now was an excellemt move.", the female admitted. "Decent work as always, Phantom."

"I bet Bull would have blundered and fallen down on his ass instead.", a second older woman's voice laughed.

"This always happens 'cause the kid's just the clumsiest little shit I've ever seen.", an older man could be heard sighing.

"That's not true!", a clearly embarrassed boy's voice said.

"And he is always sooo busy staring at Salome's chest!", the reprimanding female added.

"N-Nobody asked you, Velvet!"

Finally Phantom managed to reach the other side, ready to jump into the complicated labyrinth of halls that he knew to be there, but several priests started pouring in from the other side all of a sudden.

"There he is!", one of them shouted.

"Just mow them aside like the insignificant pawns they are!", the mad girl shouted her orders into Phantom's ears full blast.

"At least the enemy's focus is on him for now.", the reprimanding female said. "We can get away in the meantime."

"Everyone remember where we're meeting up?", a very old man's voice could be heard saying. "_Especially_ you, Bull?"

"Oh, come on!", said boy named Bull complained in a whining voice.

"Don't worry! Just move as your queen demands and victory will be sure!", the mad girl cackled.

Several of the priests tried to grab Phantom, but he simply jumped over them as they angrily shouted at him. At the same time the gooey hand darted upwards and flung itself in front of the giant doors that Phantom had been trying to reach, blocking his path. The hand started to move left and right in an erratic way as it seemd to disintigrate into itself, only to emerge as a horrible creature that let out a blood-curdling scream.

"Moloch identified! Crush it, Phantom!", the mad girl commanded.

Phantom dodged a sudden wall of fire which the creature named Moloch had apparently caused just in time. He grasped the mask that had been hiding the right side of his face, ripped it off and screamed: "Arsene!"

In a sudden burst of blue light that seemed to originate from Phantom's body another creature appeared, this one looking a grotesque version of a man with wings as black as a raven's, a giant top hat on his head, chains of blue fire binding him to this world. The creature - a Persona - darted forward as Phantom commanded it and tore through Molochs body with swords made of light that appeared to have come out of Arsene's claws. Moloch screamed in pain and disintigrated into a gooey pool that seemed to vanish in a instant.

"Return!", Phantom shouted and Arsened disappeared again, the mask now once again hiding the right side of Phantom's face as he dodged several of the priest's again before he finally managed to crash through the door.

"You should be able to get out that way if you follow the path Empress showed you!", one of the older females said in his head.

"Yes! Hurry!", said Empress commanded.

"Dude, can he even hear us from that far away?!", Bull asked.

"Are you questioning your queen, peasant!? He could hear me even from beyond the grave if I so demanded! Now MOVE!"

A painful scream as if Bull had been slapped by something painful could be heard in the background.

Phantom just sighed as he ran through the blindingly white halls which slowly turned blacker and blacker until he could barely see anything. More and more priests came streaming in from different paths of this labyrinth-like structure but the teenage thief managed to avoid them by slinking into the corners or behind objects.

He just about to run up some stairs through a hall full of stone monuments and out-of-place monitors when he was spotted by several men in black who were wearing dark sunglasses. He sped up his tempo even more as the men immediately started chasing him, one of them reaching after his gun.

"This can't be the only one of them! Find them and kill them all!", the man shouted, just as Phantom reached the top of the stairs, turned down another hallways and darted through a door that led back to an even higher part of the giant hall that was now severely ruined. He stopped for an instant and looked around.

"What's wrong? Move!", Empress shouted. "The exit is just ahead!"

"Through there...?", Phantom answered with a raised eyebrow as he stared at dozens of those gooey hands down on the bottom floor, just waiting to grab and squish him like a bug.

"Nnh...! That's just how it goes on the battlefield sometimes.", Empress growled. "Either you get through here or it's checkmate! After that commotion, the bottom floor's-"

"-completely overrun by those things. Can you make it!?", one of the older female's said.

"We got him!", one of the men who had been chasing him shouted, now almost having reached him, and pointed his gun at him. "There's nowhere to run, punk!"

Phantom grinned as he let himself fall down.

The men screamed in fury as they saw him landing on one of the remaning wooden beams, jumping further towards the statues of that bald man who were still standing.

"Get back here!", one of them shouted.

"Well, see ya!", Phantom shouted back at them with a shit-eating grin and jumped right into one of the multi-colored glass windows right behind one of the statues.

"Hmph! What a showoff.", Empress scoffed as Phantom continued to jump out of the window, reaching the black nothingess outside.

"You're so reckless sometimes. You know that?", the reprimanding female named Velvet sighed.

As Phantom was about to land on the ground, he managed to avoid any serious injury by rolling to the side. Several huge searchlights immediately illuminated the terrible darkness, all pointed at him. It seemed as if hundreds of those men in black had just been waiting for him to jump outside the building.

"Enemies, here!? These readings... Filthy cheaters!", Empress immediately raged.

"What happened?!", Bull asked.

"Joker, can you handle yourself!?", Velvet screamed.

"Capture him!", the obvious leader of those men shouted, and the mob immediately started to move as one.

"Run!", one of the older females shouted as Phantom had already started running to the left where he knew the ladder they had used to get inside this groteque church would be standing. He quickly climbed it up and immediately kicked it down, smiling triumphantly at the men who could not get him now. But that smile instantly turned to horror as he saw the other countless black men who were already waiting for him on the roof. He shouted in pain as one of them rammed his fight into his stomach, effectively knocking him down the roof. The other men on the ground immediately jumped to action and held him down where he landed.

"Hmph. Didn't expect to find some kid.", the obvious leader of those men said as he came to a stop in front of Phantom. He knelt down and grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced his head upwards. "You have your teammate to thank for this." He laughed. "You were sold out." And just like that he let go of his hair again, forcing Phantom's head to make painful contact with the concrete.

"Suspect confirmed! Cuff him!", one of the man said and Phantom was immediately cuffed.

"Hee hee...", a female with long blond hair that seemed to flow in the wind like water chuckled while sitting on the roof from where she watched the teenage thief get dragged away by the men in black. "Looks like your game is over, Ren-Ren." She stood up gracefully, twirled around the roof happily, then vanished into thin air. "... Or is it?"

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SNAP SNAP went the camera they took pictures of him as he was standing there in prison, holding up his number which read _P5-2-AK-1010-RA_.

"Off with you!", one of the men in black shouted at him the moment they were done and shoved him back to the hallway where he was grabbed by two others and dragged to some other room. "Now the fun part starts..."

Phantom had to suppress the visible gulp he was about to do as he remembered just what "fun" things were waiting for him further ahead.


	2. Chapter Two

Numb. Cold. Then hot. His mind in a haze. Even though he could not move at all thanks to being cuffed to a chair, he would not have wanted to move anyway. He just wanted to stay where he was right, sleeping and not going back to the hell he had just been through.

"Guess the drug was too strong...", he could hear the gruff voice of a man, barely registering it. "Wake him up."

Ice-cold water was splashed at his face moments later, and he was rudely woken up from his escape from the pain. He slowly looked up, all the aches and pain quickly returning to his body as his eyes tried to focus on where he was: a dark small dark room with one very unstable looking table, two chairs, a camera pointing at him on the wall and a half a dozen men in black standing around him while he was cuffed to one of the chairs. At least they were not wearing their stupid glasses anymore so they looked a little less like a poor rip-off of a certain group of officers fighting aliens in a certain movie.

"No dozing off.", the same gruff voice said and he finally looked at the quite scary looking middle-aged man standing in front of him.

He tried freeing his arms from the cuffs chaining him to the chair, but to no avail.

"You still don't get it, do you?", the man sighed, annoyed. "Give it up!" A swift kick to the face and he landed on the floor without any chance to lessen the impact as he fell since he was still chained. A foot was firmly planted on his head which now felt like it was going to burst open, throbbing like crazy. "Come on, cooperate. Or what, you want another shot?"

He looked at the camera, gritting his teeth. `_Please let this work, Pandora... Without Futaba's hacking skills-´_, he thought.

The man followed his gaze. "Huh? What about the camera?", he asked and then laughed. He grabbed his hair and forced his head upwards. It was the same man as back when they had captured him, he realized. "Are you thinking it can be used as video evidence?"

"Of course not...", he managed to spit out, looking the man in the eyes with all the hatred he could muster.

"So you're not that dumb.", the main grunted. Again the man shoved him to the ground and gave him a good kick to the gut. "Which is good, 'cause we get to take as much time as we need!"

He coughed violently, barely able to keep his stomach's contents inside, while the man grabbed his files from one of his lackeys and used them to go through his supposed crimes.

"Obstruction of justice, blackmail, defamation, possession of weapons." He turned around and his lips curled. "Manslaughter too, yeah? Talk about the works." A sigh. "To think that all those crimes were led by a punk like this..." He started walking toward him again. "And you seemed to be enjoying every second of it, Huh?"

_`Enjoying it...?´_, he thought sarcastically. No. There had been so much pain. So much losss. So much... But what did he lose again? He shook his head. _`It looks like it's starting, Pandora. No, it already started inside the Palace shortly before I got that crowd's attention. I can barely remember anything. This is some power...´_

"Spacing out, are we?", the man snarled at him and pointed at two of his lackeys who immediately moved, uncuffed him and shoved him against the wall. "Sign here.", the man told him and held the file he had been studying in front of him. "It's a confession under your name."

He stared at the papers and remembered he had to sign them inevitably. So he was about to reach out and write "Akira Kurusu", but stopped.

_`That was my name before she changed our fates...´_, he thought wistfully.

"I see...", the man said, taking his hesitation as defiance. "I need your hand to sign this, but..." He stomped on his foot with all his might, nearly crushing his bones. "I don't care if you end up losing a leg." He stomped on him again for good measure, then thrust the papers at him once more. "Don't expect to walk out of here in once piece." He promised, leaning close to him and threw a pen at him. "We're going to make you understand... One must take full responsibility for their actions.."

He took the pen and with shake and weak hands wrote his new name on the papers: Ren Amamiya.

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Practically at the same time a woman in her mid 20s - a young prosecutor - walked purposefully through a barely lit hallway, one arm around her handbag, the other holding her neck which had been aching terribly these last few days, as if someone had been trying to break it. She was trying to get through the door through which she knew the suspect of her current case to be, but was stopped by one of the men in black.

"Excuse me, but this area's off-", he started and planted himself firmly in front of her.

"I'm Niijima from the Public Prosecutors Office.", the woman named Niijima interrupted him, not in the least impressed by his intimidating demeanor.

"Ther Prosecutors Office´What business do you have here?", the man asked, his face growing even more sour.

Niijima sighed in slight annoyance, massaging her neck with one hand. "Just let me through; it's urgent. There's something I need to confirm with the suspect." Her mobile phone started ringing for the umpteenth time today, but she just ignored it.

"Niijima-san, I believe this case is no longer in your jurisdiction.", the man answered. "Besides..."

He was interrupted by another of those black-clothed man who had just arrived in the hallway as well, this one much older and fatter than the others. "Are you Prosecutor Sae Niijima?", the new one asked.

Sae Niijima nodded merely nodded at him.

"There's a call from your director.", he said, just as her mobile phone started ringing again. She took it out of her bag, ignoring the annoying app with the red eye on it that she had been trying to delete again and again. "Hurry and get it over with. To be frank, you're being an inconvenience."

She glared at him and took the call, an immediate sigh greeting her on the other side of the line.

"I thought I ordered you to stand by.", an old man could be heard through the phone.

"I'm responsible for this case, yet I'm not even being allowed an interrogation!?", Sae replied to that and massaged her neck even more fiercefully, the man's voice having somehow caused this sudden urge in her.

"I'm calling because I knew you'd bring it up.", the man on the other line - Japan's quite old SIU Director - said.

"I will not be convinced unless I confirm it myself.", she insisted. "This is MY case."

Another sigh. "Good luck to you then. I won't be expecting much though..."

She stopped the call and angrily thrust her mobile phone back into her bag, already turning to go into the interrogation room.

"Ah, Prosecutor. I forgot to mention something important.", the fat man stopped her again. "Your time will be cut short. We can't permit you to talk with him for long." Sae looked at him with a raised eyebrow and shook her head. She just felt so miserable today of all times. What was wrong with her today? And for days now it had felt as if she had forgotten something. Something very important... "It's for your own sake.", the fat man continued. "His methods are unknown. After all, we don't even know if it's safe to simply meet and speak with him."

"... I understand.", Sae answered through the fog that seemed to have started building up in her head and finally entered the room in which Ren Amamiya was already sitting at a very unstable looking table, his whole face bruised badly, just like his arms. Sae hesitated for a moment as she saw him, his face downcast and staring at the table instead of the new arrival, as if his mind was completely absent. After a few seconds she had finally gathered herself again, walked the short distance toward the second uncomfortable plastic chair and sat down herself, putting down her handbag next to her.

"... I didn't expect it'd be you.", she finally said after a bit of silence between them. Ren was still looking at the table instead of her. "You'll be answering my questions this time." She took some files out of her bag, followed by a small steelcase with a rather complicated looking lock on it. Once again she reached for her bag, about to get Ren's mobile phone out which they had confiscated as well, but then just left it inside, deciding that they did not need it. She took another look at Ren's absent face, then noticed the empty needle not far away from him on the ground. "Those bastards...", she grunted, disgusted. At least now she knew the cause for his behavior. "Can you hear me? It seems you've been through a lot. Almost anything can happen here... and I can't stop them." Since he still didn't give any sign that he was acknowledging her existence, she knelt over and touched his arm. Almost immediately she shot back as if she had been hit by electricity and reached for her neck again, eyes wide in horror.

Ren finally looked up at her in slight confusion, his eyes looking empty.

"I...", Sae started, trying to regain her composure. She cough loudly, then tried to relax on her tiny chair. "At any rate, I need you to answer me honestly. I don't have much time either." She leaned forward a bit again, but this time keeping her distance from him as best as possible, remembering the fat man's warning. "What was your ojective?", she asked him. "Why did you cause such a major incident? I didn't think it was a prank from the get-go, but I couldn't assemble a case for prosecution. It's because I couldn't figure out the method behind it."

Ren sighed deeply. "Of course you couldn't... Of course you wouldn't do it this time...", he mumbled.

"... This time?", Sae asked, but Ren only shook his head, once again started to look absent-minded. Sae sighed once more. "Anyway, there's no way I could be convinced of such a... `world´ just by reading the reports." She waited a moment until he finally looked at her again. "When and where did you find out about that world? How is it even possible to steal another's heart? Now, tell me your account of everything. Start from the very beginning."

Once again Ren looked at the table, this time holding his head as if to block out the mass of fog in his head that threatened to swallow him.

_`I just want to be left in peace...´_, he thought, tired. This was not the cause of the drugs those guys had injected him. At was someone else's doing. But whose again? _`Weird. I could swear I still remembered that person's name a moment ago...´_

_"... ker..."_

_`Who...?´_, he thought, his mind barely registering the voice as he looked up a bit. Before his eyes he momentarily saw a blue butterfly flying past him.

"... You are held captive.", the same voice, familiar to him, said. "A prisoner of a twisted future that has been decided in advance. Twisted by malice... This is truly an unjust game... Your chances of winning are almost none. But if my voice is reaching you even now, there may yet be a possibility open to you... I beg you. Please win this game once more... please save this world..." His head began pounding even more, if that was even possible as he tried to listen to voice. "The key to victory lies within the memories of your bonds - both your old ones and your new companion's. Please, don't let your memories vanish any further than this. Try to keep your grasp on the truth you fought so hard for. It all began that day... when all hope was lost and humanity had almost entirely vanished... destroyed by his hands... by he who was meant to create order... For the sake of your world's future... as well as your own... you must remember... Joker..."

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9th of April, 2016:

A spectacled teenage boy with black hair, wearing a black school uniform over a white shirt sat on a train that was bound for Shibuya in Tokyo; eat least that was what the train announcer was currently reporting. The teenager named Ren Amamiya was currently too buys staring at some random point inside the train right now to really notice, as if he was in a trance. In his mind the events he had just experienced repeated themselves once more...

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At another place, in another timeline...

Every single joint in his body ached in the most painful way, every bone felt broken and crushed. He felt unbearably hot, as if he had been lying in boiling-hot water. His skin felt as if thousands of needles were constantly pricking him. And worst of all, he could not move a single muscle to try and do something against the pain he was currently experiencing.

"Well, well, well...", a female voice said, barely registered by his groggy mind. "It looks like you've gone and died, Akira-kun. Congratulations~."

He tried to look up. Tried to speak. At least open his eyes. He couldn't.

The female sighed. "Well, that's no good, is it? Lying around like that, playing dead.", she said. "Hmm... What to do...?"

There was a short moment of silence until he suddenly felt the ground on which he was lying shift, and suddenly he was falling. He would have screamed if he could, being surprised by the sudden fall. But as soon as he had started it already came to an end as he fell into what seemed ice-cold water. Finally a scream of protest escaped him and his muscles started to work again as he quickly moved his arms and legs to escape his watery prison before he drowned.

But barely seconds later he was kneeling on solid ground again, gasping for air. Well, at least he thought it was solid ground he was on, but as far as his now working eyes could see there was nothing but white.

"There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?", the female voice said, right behind him.

He whirled around on the ground and came face to face with a beautiful woman with stunning blue eyes, almost as deep as the ocean, and long blond - almost white - hair that seemed to almost flow in the wind like water. Except, he could not feel any wind. So how did it flow like that?

She grinned at him, straightened he rather short red dress and got up from her seat on the ground, now looking at him from above. "Surprised, Akira-kun?", she asked.

"Who...?", Akira began, confused.

"Hmm... Wo, indeed?", the woman said, one hand on her chin and looking up to the also empty and white sky while thinking. "Hmm... `Astaroth´? No, I don't want to be associated with that stupid god. `As´... Hmm... `As´..." She shook her head decidedly. "Oh, screw this. You wouldn't get the joke anyway." She looked at him and tilted her head slightly. "What would you call me?"

He slightly opened his mouth to say something, but once again she interrupted him.

"Pandora! You're right! That's SUCH a good name! Why, thank you!", she happily squealed.

"I... didn't say anything.", Akira clarified.

"Oh, you don't need to.", the woman who had just named herself Pandora chuckled, made some kind of wave motion behind her and then sat down in mid-air, apparently having conjured up up a seat that only she could see.

"Who are you?", Akira asked once more. "And where am I?"

"I am Pandora.", she answered him like a mother patiently explaining to her child that one plus one is two. "I'm what you humans would call a god, if I had to explain it."

"A god? So like Yaldabaoth."

"Hah! Now that's a laugh!", Pandora chuckled. "Well, it depends on who you are thinking about... The one who you defeated a few years ago that was posing as Mementos' Treasure: Nope. Nuh-uh. Total trash and never ever a god. Heh. He WISHES he was." She suddenly looked him dead in the eyes, completely serious all of a sudden. "If you're talking about the one who killed you, all your friends and loved ones and basically almost all of humanity, then yes, THAT Yaldabaoth is a god."

Akira just stared at her for a moment. "I... am dead?", he asked, expressionless, as he had a faint memory of being slammed against a wall as someone charged at him before he eyes.

"Yes, that's what I've been saying.", Pandora answered, now growing slightly impatient. "You and the former Phantom Thieves, your confidants. Basically almost everyone."

"But... how? I don't remember."

"Well, I guess the shock that your sudden death caused must have erased some of your memories.", she guessed. "But it is a fact that humanity is almost extinct now. Because Yaldabaoth, as he is now, cannot contain his rage at having been reborn incomplete."

"Incomplete?", he repeated.

"You entire year in Tokyo was a journey for Yaldabaoth's rebirth.", Pandora explained. "Don't ask me how he actually disappeared in the first place. I wasn't around for that yet. But I do know that he was gone. That's why there was so much chaos in this world. So many distorted desires. I mean, he IS the one meant to create order here." She stretched languidly on her seat and crossed her legs before continuing. "Anyway, Yaldabaoth had kept all the Seven Deadly Sins in check so that humans could go live their lifes in peace, avoiding disgusting distortions like Kamoshida or Kaneshiro. But something happened to him. And as he faded away so were the Sins released on humanity.

Did you notice? All the Palaces you managed to erase on your journey back then all represented a Sin; one even contained two of them. With each Palace's erasure you also erased the personification of a Sin that had manifested in the Palace's ruler. You were led specifically to those that harbored them inside. You guided each Sin back to Yaldabaoth, helping him be reborn. But..." She sighed. "Something went very, VERY wrong, and Yaldabaoth was reborn before having absorbed all sins. Being reborn incomplete, he went berserk and raged at the race of the one who had failed him: your race. He will not be satisfied until he has annihilated every single human being on this planet. And even then his rage will remain, never to be sated... You tried to stop him, but, well, here you are: dead."

"But... what exactly happened that made the process of his rebirth fail?", Akira asked.

"Weeell...", Pandora started.

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Back to 9th of April, 2016:

"What? Are you for real? A mental shutdown?", a highschool girl said in the train Ren was currently on.

He finally awoke from his trance and glanced at the girl and her friend.

_`I'm really back...´_, he thought and looked around the train.

"It's the truth.", the highschool girl's friend said.

"To a person though? That's gotta be a joke.", the highschooler said. "You really love all that occult stuff, don't you?"

Ren Amamiya left the train station a few minutes later and wandered the busy streets of Shibuya that he knew so well. While waiting at a traffic light he checked his phone, and sure enough, there was the Metaverse App on the screen just like it had been years ago. Deleting it would be useless, he knew. And he did not intend to try. He would need it very soon, after all.

He DID look up in a surprise though as suddenly all of Shibuya seemed to have stopped in time, though, as he actually had forgotten that this had happened back then.

Why had it happened again? He did not remember.

"I am thou... Thou art I..."

Again, he startled as he heard the whispered voice, and the next moment a figure surrounded by blue fire appeared in the middle of frozen Shibuya street.

"From the sea of thy soul rebellion still remains...", the figure whispered, and suddenly Ren screamed and fell to the ground, holding his head while rolling from one side to the other as if to extinguish an invisible fire on his body that only he could see.

_`So much pain! So much anguish! Please make it stop!´_, he thought, desperate, gasping in pain. Every single bone felt crushed. Destroyed. Filled with nothing but malice.

"Has thou accepted thy new reality? Has thou returned to continue what thou couldst not finish?", the voice continued to whisper, as the flames burned around it and its eyes turned a bright red. "BREAK FREE! SHOW ME THY RAGE AT WHAT THEY DID TO YOU! YOU ARE A CURSED CHILD! CURSED BY MALICE!"

Ren screamed, in terror or in fury, he could not tell anymore.

"MY BODY BURNED BLACK! THY SINS TAKEN AS MINE OWN! SHOW ME THAT MINE TRUST IN THOU WAS NOT A MISTAKE!"

Ren growled dangerously and suddenly lept up, dashing at the figure as if to stroke, his eyes a bright yellow-

And the next moment he was once again standing at the traffic lights which had just turned green as time had resumed, his right fist raised as if to hit someone. Some passersbies were staring at him curiously while other hurriedly passed him to avoid any brawl that might happen.

He looked around in confusion before he quickly crossed the road, once getting swallowed by the masses as he continued on his way to his destination, dozens of questions still on his mind.

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**Author's notes: I thought to mention that English is not my native language so please forgive any weird phrasing or other stuff like that.**


End file.
